Henry still maintained his position. "But, father," he said, "you yourself have often told me that Dr. Daniell is an imitation Englishman...." Dr. Daniell was the Provost of Trinity.
"He is, and so is his whole family. I know them well ... lick-spittles, the lot of them, an' the lad that's comin' after him, oul' Beattie, is no better ... a half-baked snob ... I'll tell you a story about him in a minute ... but all the same, it's not them that matter ... it's the place and the tradition an' the feel of it all ... do you make me out?"
"Yes, father, I know what you mean!"
"You'd be like a foreigner at Cambridge ... like one of them fellows that come from India or Germany or places like that ... but at Trinity you'd be at home, in your own country, Henry, where people with brains are badly needed!"
He went on like that until he wore down Henry's desire to go to Cambridge. "I'd rather you didn't go to a university at all," he said, "than not have you go to T.C.D."
"Very well, father!" said Henry, consenting.
"That's right, my son," the old man said, patting his son on the back. "An' now I'll tell you that yarn about Beattie. It'll make you split your sides!"
It appeared that Mr. Quinn had dined at a house in Dublin where Dr. Beattie was also a guest, and the don was telling tales as was his custom, of his acquaintances in high places. The poor old clergyman had a weakness for the company of kings and queens, and liked to tell people of what he had said to an emperor or of what a prince had said to him.
"I was talking to my friend, the Queen of Spain, a short time ago," Dr. Beattie had said, "and I made a joke which pleased her majesty. It was about my friend, the Kaiser, who was present at the time. The Kaiser heard us laughing, her majesty and me, and he came over to ask us why we were laughing so heartily, the Queen and me. The Queen was very embarrassed because, of course, I had been making fun of the Kaiser, but I did not lose my self-possession. I turned to the Emperor and said, 'Sir, the Queen and I have known each other for a few moments only, but already we have a secret between us!'" The Kaiser was very tickled by my retort ... very tickled ... and the Queen told me afterwards that it was very adroit of me to get out of it like that. She said it was my Irish wit!...
It was at this point that Mr. Quinn had interrupted. "An' what did your friend God say?" he had demanded innocently.
Mr. Quinn sat back in his chair, when he had finished telling the story, and roared loudly with laughter. "You ought to have seen the oul' snob turnin' red, white an' blue with rage," he shouted at Henry. "Such a take-down! My God, what a take-down! There he was, the oul' wind-bag, bletherin' about his friend, the Queen of Spain, an' his friend, the Emperor of Germany, an' there was me, just waitin' for him, just waitin', Henry, an' the minute he shut his gob, I jumped in, an' says I to him, 'An' what did your friend God say?' By the Holy O, that was a good one! I never enjoyed myself so much as I did that night, an' everybody else that was there was nearin' burstin' with tryin' not to laugh. Do you mind Lady Galduff?"
"Yes, father!"
"You mind her rightly, don't you? Well, when you go up to Dublin, you're to call on her, do you hear? Never mind about her manners. Ask her to tell you about me an' Dr. Beattie ... the way I asked him about his friend God. Oh, Holy O!..."
He could proceed no further, for his sides were shaking with laughter and the tears were streaming down his cheeks and his cheeks were the colour of beetroot.
"You'll hurt yourself, father," said Henry, "if you laugh like that!"
4
"Of course," said Mr. Quinn, after a while, "the man's a great scholar, an' I mebbe did wrong to take him down like that. But I couldn't help it, Henry. You see, he's always makin' little of Irish things, an' I have no use for a man like that. Not but what some people think too much of Ireland an' too little of other places. Many's a time I get ragin' mad when I hear some of the Nationalists bleatin' about Ireland as if a bit of bog in the Atlantic were worth the rest of the world put together. Do you know what, I'm goin' to say somethin' that'll surprise you. I don't believe Irishmen'll think properly about Ireland 'til they stop thinkin' about it altogether. We're too self-conscious. We haven't enough pride an' we've too much conceit. That's the truth. You daren't say a word of criticism about Ireland for fear you'd have the people jumpin' down your throat—an' that's a sign of weakness, Henry. Do you know why the English are as strong as they are? It's because they'll let you criticise them as much as you like, an' never lose their temper with you. The only time I ever knew them to be flabby and spineless was when the Boer War was on ... an' they'd scream in your face if you didn't say they were actin' like angels. They were only like that then, but we're like it all the time. The fools don't know that the best patriot is the man that has the courage to own up when his country's in the wrong!..."
Mr. Quinn suddenly sat up stiffly in his seat and gaped at his son for a few moments.
"Begod, Henry," he said, "I'm preachin' to you!"
"Yes, father, you are," Henry replied. "But I don't mind. It's rather interesting!"
But the force had gone out of Mr. Quinn. The thought that he had been preaching a sermon, delivering a speech, filled him with self-reproach.
"I never meant to start off like that," he said. "I only meant to tell you what was in my mind. You see, Henry, I love Ireland an' I want to see her as fine as ever she was ... but she'll never be fine again 'til she gets back her pride an' her self-respect. The English people have stolen that from us ... yes, they have, Henry! I knew Arthur Balfour when he was a young man ... I liked him too ... but I'll never forget that it was him that turned us into a nation of cadgers. I'm not much of a thinker, Henry, but the bit of brain I have'll be used for Ireland, whatever happens. You've got more brains than I have, an' I'd like you to use them for Ireland, too."
5
"This is the way I look at things," Mr. Quinn said later on. "The British people are the best people in the world, an' the Irish people are the best people in the British Empire, an' the Ulster people are the best people in Ireland!" He glanced about him for a few moments as if he were cogitating, and then he gave a chuckle and winked at his son. "An' begod," he said, "I sometimes think I'm the best man in Ulster!" He burst out laughing when he had finished. "Ah," he said, half to himself, as he stroked his fine beard, "I'm the quare oul' cod, so I am!"
"All the same," he went on, speaking soberly, "I'm not coddin' entirely. The Irish have plenty of brains, but they haven't any discipline, an' brains are no good unless you can control them. We need knowledge and experience, Henry, more nor anything else, an' the more knowledge we bring into the country, the better it'll be for us all. Too much imagination an' not enough knowledge ... that's what's the matter with us. The English have knowledge, but they've small imagination!... I declare to my goodness, the best thing that could happen to the two of us, the English and the Irish, would be for some one to pass a law compellin' every Irishwoman to marry an Englishman, an' every Englishwoman to marry an Irishman. We'd get some stability into Ireland then ... an' mebbe we'd get some intelligence into England."
6
Henry acquiesced in his father's wishes, but he did so reluctantly. Gilbert's plan for their future had attracted him greatly. He saw himself passing pleasant years at Cambridge in learning and in argument. There was to be scholarship and company and curiosity and enquiry. They were to furnish their minds with knowledge and then they were to seek adventures in the world: a new order of Musketeers: